31 Days, 31 Lists: 2024 Unconventional Children’s Books

Before I begin, I should note that this list owes its existence to the annual Most Astonishingly Unconventional Children’s Books list put out by Travis Jonker at 100 Scope Notes. Though I’ve always done a version of this, I must credit him with coming up with the term “unconventional” which is a brilliant and non-judgey way of discussing these books. Of course, Travis and I differ on which books fit such lists. He has made his. Now see which ones made mine. There’s overlap but they are certainly not carbon copies of one another.

On today’s list you’re definitely going to see some books that could easily be called “weird” but you’re also going to see a number of titles that upset our conceptions of what a children’s book published in America can even be. That might mean the subject matter, the narrative style, the art, or some other aspect is “unconventional”. Leave your judgements at the door and follow me down this interesting path.

You can find a full PDF of today’s choices here.

Curious about other unconventional titles? Then check out these previous lists:

• 2023
• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016

2024 Unconventional Children’s Books

Alfie Explores A to Z: A Seek & Find Adventure by Jeff Drew

You know the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover? Take that and then just smoosh it together with Animalia by Graeme Base. Just really pulverize those two things together until you get a nice sticky paste that I like to call Alfie Explores A to Z. Jeff Drew is a filmmaker by trade but apparently he had a little time on his hands because he decided to make an alphabet book very much in the same vein as Base, but done with computer art instead. Thing is, I’ll forgive a lot if it’s clear that a book’s creator cares deeply about their project. In his dedication Drew writes, “And for my friends who have asked over the last ten years, ‘How’s your book coming?’.” Therefore, this book qualifies as a legitimate labor of love. The story, such as it is, is that Alfi, a caterpillar with a penchant for knit cable sweaters, has lost his pet dust bunny Betty. I know this mostly because it is explained less in the text and more on the front bookflap of the title. He pursues her through different books, each one a different world, each one typified by a different letter. And the man doesn’t go halfsies on these worlds either. “A” is a pretty darn good example of this. On this page there are apparently things that begin with that letter (including an anglerfish, for which Mr. Drew automatically gets 20 points). I know that there are 116 things because, unlike Graeme Base, Drew includes a key at the back for finding and identifying everything there. He also will indicate where Betty is and where Alfie is. Did I inspect the X page closely? I did. Does he play fair? Yes, though in the backmatter he almost has an alternative image where words that end with X are featured in a different way. If you’ve a kid who thinks the Where’s Waldo books could use a little more confusion and chaos, this is the book for them. Even more extra points for the “Zooming zobines zipline over New Zealand” image. It is seared into my brain, never to be removed. 

Amazing Grapes by Jules Feiffer

…

Uh…

Whoa.

All right… um… all right.

So when I started collecting “unconventional” books for kids, I just sort of made the assumption that the Europeans were better at unconventionality than the Americans. Like, that’s what I literally thought. This assumption, often proved correct, sometimes flounders when it meets a book like Amazing Grapes.

Let me put this another way. You know that short story “Mimsy Were the Borogroves”, by Lewis Padgett, where a toy from the future accidentally gets sent to the past and the two children who find and play with it find that it reroutes how their minds work? I’m half-serious when I say that this book is that toy. This book is clearly from the future. It is working on some kind of logical level that adults are simply not capable of comprehending. I did attempt to read it to my 10-year-old because, y’know, I love me my Jules Feiffer, but what we found together was that this is not a group read book. This is a one-on-one book. It is also the purest child version of those adult graphic novels that Feiffer used to make back in the day. Stuff like Tantrum (which lives rent-free in my head, no matter how often I try to oust it). It is a testament to the man’s legacy that this madness got published in the first place. In a world of samey samey samey graphic novels, this puppy doesn’t just stand out. It devours the competition. 

Don’t say you weren’t warned. 

Barnaby Unboxed by Terry, Eric, and Devin Fan

Genetic manipulation is definitely a science fiction trope, but rarely one that finds an audience with the younger elementary school set. Yet that’s precisely what you had when the Fan brothers created the picture book The Barnabus Project back in 2020. If you’ll recall, the hero of that book was a little elephant/mouse combo, capable of inspiring a cacophony of chaos. This book stars a pink version of Barnabus called Barnaby (the pink comes from flamingo DNA, naturally). As a designer pet, Barnaby is thrilled when he’s adopted by a little girl. She teaches him tricks, takes him on walks, dresses him in cute costumes, and more. Then, one day, she learns that there’s a version of Barnaby out there with stripes. It’s one of those familiar tales where a pet or toy fears being replaced (which, I suppose, is just a metaphor for kids who fear the same thing when a new sibling comes along). Barnaby accidentally/intentionally runs away, then finds that he can’t get back. Befriended by squirrels, he makes an entirely new life for himself. Then spring comes and the little girl finds him again. Will he go back? The book has all the feelings of an epic adventure, and indeed it’s packed full of pages. Even so, there’s also a coziness to it. Kids will have fun spotting the lost pet posters that appear high above Barnaby, so that he never knows they’re there until a climactic moment. Unique but filled with familiar elements, this one’s a keeper. 

Bird Is Dead by Tiny Fisscher, ill. Herma Starreveld, translated by Laura Watkinson

Occasionally I’m tempted to add another list to this 31 Days, 31 Lists roster: Death Books. It’s a bit morbid, though. Not sure how many people in the midst of December are all that into picture books and chapter books that remind us of our own mortality. Part of what I like about this book is that it reminds me that there are as many different ways to write a picture book about death as there are stars in the sky. In this particular case, Fischer opted for “weird” and I am here for it. Maybe “weird” is unfair, though. Part of what I like so much about Bird Is Dead is that the other birds, upon discovering Bird’s death, act a LOT like people you may know yourself. When Bird is discovered at the start of the book, everyone’s reaction varies. One bird keeps trying to keep the peace by reminding everyone of the death. Others admit they found him a pest, (“He thought you were a pest too!”). Still others claim he was their best friend. But the overall feeling you get from this book is that no one really knows what to do when something like this happens. There’s no clear leader here, so everyone just does the best that they can, whether that’s figuring out where to bury him, or how to say the eulogy. It doesn’t go out of its way to comfort, but even amongst these occasionally squabbling friends there’s an odd kind of peace at the finale. The book is Dutch in its origins, and certainly won’t be for everyone, but I love the art by a therapist-turned-illustrator, which is a kind of colorful mixed media. It gives the whole thing a fairly lovely feel throughout. 

Boy Here, Boy There by Chuck Groenink

You know, I have a “Science Fiction” list and a “Fantasy” list that often incorporates picture books, but I don’t really have a “Pleistocene” category and maybe I should think about it. Recently we’ve seen this incredible array, including everything from Afterwards Everything Was Different to Finding Fire. Of course, those books were both wordless. This book isn’t wordless. It isn’t even about homo sapiens. It is actually about a small band of Neanderthals, and since that’s a topic that is of perpetual interest to me, I was somewhat hooked from the get-go. For whatever reason I always thought that all Neanderthals were red-headed. In this book, however, they have many of the other traits. The Author’s Note at the end makes mention of this, and it’s a book that keeps rather closely to the facts as we currently know them, which is great. The story follows a boy with simple language. “Here is a family. Mama, papa, brothers, sisters and boy.” The family makes a home and the boy goes off to explore the wilderness. He runs into a baby woolly mammoth and then something much much stranger: another boy. Across a small river stands a human of our own making. As an adult my first instinct was to scream, “RUN, NEANDERTHAL BOY, RUN!!” But as this is a picture book, we’re not getting any violence here today. Instead you just get that strange moment of seeing someone like you and not like you. The backgrounds of the book are gorgeous, the storytelling so nicely simple, and the book itself lovely. I dare say this is Groenink’s finest title to date. A class act through and through and unlike any other title on the subject.  Previously seen on the Simple Books List.

Garbage Gulls by Dorson Plourde, ill. Isabella Fassler

Ah, brilliant. A book that truly personifies what it is we mean when we call a book “unconventional”. I truly do feel that seagulls have never truly gotten their picture book due. I mean, what other animal actively and regularly steals from/terrorizes small children? Besides geese, I mean. This book is a bit different because it involves two kids who know “The Sea” (which is to say, The Sea Motel) like the back of their hands, but they’ve never been to the beach. They spend the hot days of summer blowing bubble gum bubbles and sitting on broken down cars, “Let’s stick to the seats, clicked into the heat, we are microwave molten goo.” Plourde is pulling out all the stops with this narrative. For fun, the kids surround themselves with french fries. So many that the garbage gulls (who indicate that the sea cannot possibly be all that far) are summoned. The fantasy that follows takes the kids to the sea in the midst of some incredible poetic lines. My favorite parts, though, involve the seagulls themselves. “A few crunched bags summon squawks from Heavenly Mattress, a squall perched on what’s left of the M and between the Es. The squawks mock, mock mock.” I’ve always been fond of stories about broken down city locations, and this book slots into that category like a hand in a glove. Art by the Canadian Isabella Fassler is wild and raw and full of pencil crayons and graphite. I guarantee, you won’t forget this one soon. 

Griso the One and Only by Roger Mello, translated by Daniel Hahn

If ever there were a book this year for whom the term “unconventional” was perfectly coined, it would be this one. Roger Mello is just one of those folks who doesn’t like to do the same book twice. Or, in this case, like anyone else in the world. The idea behind this book sounds simple. You have a unicorn and that unicorn is searching the world for another like himself. He runs through surreal landscapes as Mello tries out a whole slew of different artistic styles. One minute Griso is recreating a Tang Dynasty mural and the next a Persian bas-relief. He might go through scenes based on Bamana ancient sculptures from Mali or woodcuts based on Brazilian chapbook literature. There’s not precisely what one would call a strictly “happy” ending to the book, but there is a satisfying ending, as Griso meets a winged horse, also the only one of its kind. As strange as this may sound, this may be one of Mello’s more accessible books for American kids. The style may change but the storyline is consistent, comprehensible, and I rather love the way it nails the ending. One could also have fun staring engrossed at the endpapers. They’re a yellow and black checkerboard pattern and they virtually vibrate off the page. Previously seen on the Caldenott List.

Heatwave by Lauren Redniss

Can a book burn you? Can you actually feel waves of heat emanating off the pages? Here’s my advice to you on how best to read Redniss’s Heatwave. Find yourself the chilliest, coldest, nastiest day in winter. Maybe one of those days where the damp and the dank just seep into your bones from the moment you wake up. Next, take this book. I’ve rarely seen a title this adept at really showing you how it feels to be infused with summer heat. The red in this book is inescapable. So much so that when those clouds start rolling in you’re cheering them on like a fan in the stands. Then you get that one blue raindrop on the page, its incredible liquid blue almost vibrating against the sea of red. By the time everything cools down the world is infused in blue, but it’s not a cold blue. It’s just that warm blue you get on a hot night. This book feels like a European import, but is 100% American to its core. I expect it’s going to do VERY well overseas, just the same. A cool story that I’m so pleased we get to experience. 

The Island Before No by Christina Uss, ill. Hudson Christie

Well, that’s a helluva thing. So this is a kind of a fascinating picture book. Wholly original. Great text. But it’s the images that are the star of the show. I like the illogical logic of the whole thing too. It’s set on an island where you’ve a bunch of pretty darn peaceful walruses who have managed to co-exist for quite some time without ever being able to tell one another “No”. These are yes walruses, through and through. As such, they are wholly unprepared when this kid appears on their island and just starts taking advantage of them wholecloth. He takes donuts without paying for them, won’t share, and generally just railroads the whole island into doing what he wants. Our hero walrus (unnamed) finally manages to convince his fellows to say the word “No” once in a while, though it’s a struggle to learn. I know many a nice kid who has a hard time with this word as well, so the metaphor is shiny and clear as day as far as I can tell. It has a satisfying ending, but the art, man, the art! Illustrator-animator Hudson Christie is described in his little bio as having grown up watching shows like Pingu and Gumby. You can see a lot of that one the page, but the sheer movement he’s able to capture is jaw-dropping. The kids look like escapees from Playmobile and the walruses are sympathetic, one and all. Maybe it’s messagey but it’s far more funny and incredible to look at. You ain’t seen NOTHING like this! Previously seen on the Funny Picture Books List.

John the Skeleton by Triinu Laan, ill. Marja-Lissa Plats, translated by Adam Cullen

Meet my favorite Estonian picture book of all time. The last time I fell for something from Estonia it was The Ear by Piet Raud, and I stand by my love of that title, but this is something special. First and foremost, I’d like to state for the record that I think the cover is just a touch misleading. I’m not sure why illustrator Marja-Liisa Plats chose to cover John in snails. I think if he was just waving nicely then he’d be fine without them. It sort of gives the impression that the book is going to be creepier than it is. It is not, for the record, creepy at all, but rather a very sweet testament to growing old, friendship, comfort, and routines. John is a skeleton in a school, but over the years he’s lost some of his digits and bones. He ends up in the possession of Gramps who lives in a cottage with his wife, deep in the woods. They both become very fond of John, and as he acclimates to his life as a “retired skeleton” with them, he becomes close not simply with them but with their grandchildren as well. The book is just broken up into all kinds of little interstitial stories, and as we watch, Grams dies and Gramps has to adjust to life without her. It’s sweet, moving, and touching, and there’s this wonderful little moment in the backmatter about the real John where it says, “An ordinary Estonian’s dream is to live in a house where their closest neighbors are at least half a kilometer away. When John got the chance to retire and live on a farm in Vörumaa, which is one of the farthest corners of the country, his dream came true.” Strangely comforting in an all new way. 

The Legend of Tiger and Tail-Flower by Lee Gee Eun, translated by Aerin Park

When a supremely grumpy tiger finds a talking dandelion permanently attached to his tail, he has no idea how close the two will become. An unconventional “tail” of friendship. The bookflap of this title talks about how Lee Gee Eun is “the most beloved picture book artist working in Korea today” which is QUITE the praise. I’ve heard mixed things about whether or not this is based on a folktale or not. It is, I should say, an odd little work. I was a bit put off at the beginning but warmed up to it as it continued. Bonus: Eyebrows. Who can resist eyebrows? BOTH on the tiger and the dandelion! You really do have to get into the tone of this book as it goes, but once you’re in the groove, it’s pretty darn cute. 

Meeselphe by Claude Ponti, translated by Alyson Waters and Margot Kerlidou

I have long since given up on trying to explain what precisely it is that Claude Ponti does on a page. I’m always attracted to books for young people that completely subsume a person into the mind and thoughts of the author/artist. The kinds of books that literally could not be made by anyone else. Can you imagine AI ever coming up with the kind of stuff that Ponti profligates? I think not. Meeselphe, his latest here in the States, just sort of proves my point on every page. Ostensibly, it’s a quest tale. Picture book quest stories are often so interesting. Think of I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew or pretty much anything Aaron Becker makes. Here, our heroine is a treehouse denizen named Meeselphe. One day she wonders what it’s like on the ground, so she just jumps down, sight unseen. There are a lot of books out in 2024 about people or animals taking leaps into the unknown (have you seen The Bunnybirds?), making me wonder if there’s something bigger going on. Meeselphe herself is an excellent companion in her travels. She loves solving puzzles and riddles, and she’s never in the least bit disturbed by the monsters she encounters. There’s also a nice meta moment where the monsters continually tell her that everything will come to a head on pages 38 and 39. Goofball storytelling with surprising heart and grit.

Pepper and Me by Beatrice Alemagna

When a little girl gets a scab on her knee it is NOT beautiful. Even so, she names it Pepper and she and her scab learn to live with one another, for a time. An oddly touching tale. I like ‘em weird, sure, but I also like ‘em to have an honest connection to what it’s like to be a kid. And a talking scab? Tell me more! I don’t think I’ve had a significant scab since I was a kid, but I had them ALL the time back then. A child really does have a whole relationship to their scabs too. When I first heard about this book I worried that it would have a whole friendship aspect right from the start, but instead this is much more interesting and talks about the love/hate relationship kids have with their wounds. Fun Fact: In the French edition I believe the scab’s name is “Bertha”. Utterly original. Utterly bizarre. 

Pretty Ugly by David Sedaris, ill. Ian Falconer

You know that old saying not to make faces or one might stick that way? Anna Van Ogre finds it out the hard way, but fortunately comes up with a truly disgusting solution, in this twisted take on finding beauty within. This is a weird one and no question. You probably know Ian Falconer best as the guy behind the Olivia books. He died last year in 2023 and it makes me kind of sad to read this book. In it, he goes so completely off the rails that I can only imagine what other fun and wackadoodle books he probably had in his future. This book actually elicits gasps from its readers, it is so beautifully twisted. I imagine it’s going to become quite the cult hit. If you read it, don’t say I didn’t warn you…

The Remarkables: The Most Incredible Children I’ve Met – So Far! By Clotilde Perrin, translated by Daniel Hahn

Trust Clotilde Perrin to be weird. In a good way, naturally! If you enter a children’s room of a library and notice that some of the picture books are not fitting on the shelves, odds are those are Clotilde Perrin books. Alongside Gecko Press, she and her publisher raise a middle finger to typical picture book dimensions. Now this latest title may actually fit the shelves a little better than some of its fellows, but what she lacks in the usual height she makes up for in girth. Which is to say, in text and illustrations. Clocking in at a massive 66 pages, the book lists a slew of remarkable children. And not just because they’re a little different from their fellows either. They are a LOT different. There’s the prickly child, covered in spikes, and the diamond child (where translator Daniel Hahn chose to keep the original “Très ostentatious” on the page to describe). There’s the Grassy Child and the Cloud Child and the Giant Child as well. All told there are 38 children in total and their lives are strange and lovely and odd and fun. I particularly liked the sections that discussed how they interact with one another. The most disturbing? Definitely the Cupcake Child. Not because the kid is particularly weird, but because his parents are continually trying to eat him. It’s a miracle the child is still alive (once you read it, you’ll understand why the child doesn’t, “like hearing my parents talk about me” and why, “I’d like some peace and quiet, even if it meant becoming an orphan”). Ah, translated children’s books. You’re always my favorites. Previously seen on the Translated Children’s Books List.

Thank You, Everything by Icinori, translated by Emilie Robert Wong

Years ago, when my children were young, I used to read them a marvelous picture book called Issun Bôshi: The One-Inch Boy. It was everything I love about folktales. Gross, weird, with art that was supremely beautiful. Artist couple Mayumi Otero and Raphael Urwiller publish together under the name “Icinori”, but I hadn’t really seen anything else they’d done in years. That all changed this year with Thank You, Everything. Don’t let the title fool you. While this may sound like one of those standard gratitude books that are particularly popular in library displays around Thanksgiving time, this book is much much weirder. It starts off fairly normally though. “Thank you, yellow. Thank you, red.” Let it be known that the “red” in this book is debatable. Personally, I think it looks orange, but one could argue that it was more an orangey red. The book thanks different objects, from pocket knives to trains. But then a plot starts to emerge out of the ephemera. About the time our hero and their doppleganger are escaping from an exploding volcano, you know you’re not in Kansas anymore. Supremely lovely, this is the kind of book a kid could pore over for long periods of time, immersed in this beautiful world. How else could I possible conclude this write-up, except to say, thank you, Icinori! Previously Seen on the Caldenott List.

Tumblebaby by Adam Rex, ill. Audrey Helen Weber

I dunno. The more I think about it, the more and more respect I have for picture books that work outside the norms. As I like to tell people, the publishing system is set up to essentially iron out inconsistencies and weirdnesses from books for kids. At least, that’s usually the case, but once in a while a weirdo slips through and you just have to admire that weirdo’s panache. Such is the case with this Rex/Weber co-creation. I like a book that takes its premise to its logical extreme. Rex is doing me one better and taking his idea to its illogical extreme. The whole premise is that on the first night “Baby” was to be put to bed, Daddy put up an objection to the crib. Quoth he, “I don’t like fences”. Which, insofar as I’m concerned, means that Daddy pretty much deserves what he gets in this book. Baby, always depicted with a perpetual smiling face and closed eyes within purple pjs, is incapable of stillness and eventually manages to tumble out the door (which Momma is apparently a-okay with since she refuses to close the door saying, “No – everybody’s got to make their own way in life,” so Daddy and Momma basically deserve one another). What follows are a series of small adventures as Tumblebaby encounters scoundrels (Rex gets 100 points for the use of this word), coyotes, and more. Rex occasionally stops everything to directly speak to the reader, as when he begins a gatefold of a mountain with a text reading, “Let’s go walking for a bit. We’ll walk because it’s a nice day for walking, and I want to show you something. Look.” The whole thing feels simultaneously like a love letter Rex is writing to his home state of Arizona as well as an ode to European picture books. In truth, this enterprise feels like it had to have originated in Estonia or something (I’m very into Estonian picture books this year thanks to the aforementioned John the Skeleton). How Rex and Weber got this to come out, I do not know. I’m just pleased as punch and proud of them that they did. 

Wanjikũ, Child of Mine by Ciikũ Ndũng’ũ-Case, ill. Karen Vermeulen

It’s always important to stress that when I say that the books in this list are “unconventional” that’s just a way of saying that they don’t slot neatly into pre-existing categories. No better example of this could be found than this Kenyan-set picture book about a young Gikũyũ and Mũmbi girl. The story doesn’t follow the set, prescribed format that so many books of this type do, and that threw me a little as I read it. The three girls on the cover? They’re all the same girl, and going into this book knowing that is important because Ndũng’ũ-Case isn’t particularly interested in catching you up when time bounces forward and her heroine is living in a new location. The story follows Wanjikũ, later to take the name Catherine. As a little girl she lives with her grandmother in the country, letting out the goats, living in an eden-like place full of delicious fruit trees, coffee plants, and sugarcane. When she’s a small child, the story begins with the words “As the Sun Rises.” Later, she’s older, in a uniform, and in school. She now lives in Nairobi with her parents and maid, and must navigate the busy city streets. By the time the book says, “When the Sun Sets” there has been another change. Now she’s older still and attending a boarding school, far from all family. During the day she speaks English but at night she seeks out the other Gikũyũ , “just to hear my mother tongue.” It reads, “The Kamba seek the Kamba and the Meru, the Meru. But I am the daughter of Mũmbi  and I seek the other daughters of Mũmbi.” So when I tell you that there is no other book on our shelves today that even comes close to this one, I’m certain you know what I mean. A contemporary picture book set in Kenya that shows what it’s like to move from place to place? I’ve never seen such a thing before, and am grateful to have this in hand. More like this, please.  

We Go to the Park by Sara Stridsberg, ill. Beatrice Alemagna, translated by B.J. Woodstein

I like it when I flip a book so that I can read the publisher on the spine and the name that I read there is “Unruly”. If you’re unfamiliar with it, the Unruly imprint of Enchanted Lion Books specializes in adult picture books. Why include it? Technically, the Caldecott goes to illustrated books for children, but has no problem handing out Honors to YA graphic novels. This book, originally written in Swedish, is actually intended for a teen and adult audience, which makes a certain amount of sense. Of course, usually when publishers talk about picture books for teens they mean those treacly “graduation books” that come out like clockwork every spring. This? This is not that. I mean, if you really wanted it to be that you could probably justify it, and it would truly be a MUCH more interesting choice than, say, Oh, the Places You’ll Go. With a thick cardboard cover and marvelous endpapers that somehow manage to be both colorful and murky all at once, the book opens with two blank pages on which are printed the following words: 

“Some say we come from the stars, 

that we’re made of stardust, 

that we once swirled into the world

from nowhere.

We don’t know.

So we go to the park.”

And ostensibly it’s just a story about that. Going to the park. But there’s not much of a story at this park. If anything, this is a story that taps into the nostalgia that teens and adults feel when they look back at a time when going to the park was all that they wanted to do, as kids. This is punctuated by wordless spreads on a regular basis. Alemagna has eschewed her usual love of fluorescent colors, but again I wouldn’t call this subdued painting drab. It’s beautiful and a little muted, but never boring. The same could be said for the text. It feels translated but, at the same time, isn’t stilted in any way. “We don’t know much about what will happen next… just that the swings here launch us straight into the sky.” Lovely and odd. Previously seen on the Caldenott List.

What Happened On Thursday: A Nigerian Civil War Story by Ayo Oyeku, ill. Lyida Mba

As I’ve mentioned before, “Unconventional” doesn’t mean “Weird”. It means that this is a book that isn’t like any other on your shelves. Now maybe I’m wrong. Maybe your shelves are just thronging with stories about the Nigerian Civil War. Somehow, I doubt it. Oyeku is only interested in writing a picture book for younger readers, so forget getting an introduction into anything but a child’s p.o.v. with this title. The book begins with two kids and their parents having a pretty normal suburban life. Then the war breaks out and, in as child appropriate a way as possible, all hell breaks loose. The family has to flee, first by car, and then on foot. There are flames and smoke, but the family is always together and there’s a comfort in that. We’re building empathy and with the end of the war you even get a complicated happy ending. And informative section at the end discusses the war that lasted from July of 1967 to January of 1970. Personally, I’d love to use this book with slightly older classes studying the American Civil War, so that they can see that civil wars happen all the time, even today, and this is what they can look like. Discussion questions and the author’s own experiences (more than fifteen years after the war) appear at the back. Consider pairing this with Kende! Kende! Kende! by Kirsten Cappy and Yaya Gentille, illustrated by Rahana Dariah, found on the Bilingual Books List.

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So with all that in mind, here are the other lists for 2024:

December 1 – Great Board Books

December 2 – Picture Book Readalouds

December 3 – Simple Picture Book Texts

December 4 – Transcendent Holiday Picture Books

December 5 – Rhyming Picture Books

December 6 – Funny Picture Books

December 7 – CaldeNotts

December 8 – Picture Book Reprints

December 9 – Bilingual Books for Kids

December 10 – Math Books for Kids

December 11 – Books with a Message / Social Emotional Learning

December 12 – Fabulous Photography

December 13 – Translated Picture Books

December 14 – Fairy Tales / Folktales / Religious Tales

December 15 – Wordless Picture Books

December 16 – Poetry Books

December 17 – Unconventional Children’s Books

December 18 – Easy Books & Early Chapter Books

December 19 – Comics & Graphic Novels

December 20 – Older Funny Books

December 21 – Science Fiction Books

December 22 – Fantasy Books

December 23 – Informational Fiction

December 24 – Gross Books

December 25 – Science & Nature Books

December 26 – Unique Biographies

December 27 – Blueberry Award Contenders (Celebrating the Environment)

December 28 – Nonfiction Picture Books

December 29 – Nonfiction Books for Older Readers

December 30 – Middle Grade Novels

December 31 – Picture Books

Filed under: 31 Days 31 Lists, Best Books, Best Books of 2024